


The Way On

by sahiya



Series: A Deeper Season [12]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unrequited Love, a deeper season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 16:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Helena met the Emperor, she was too worried about falling out of her dress to be properly terrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story came to me one night while I was editting Chapter 13 of _What Passing Bells_ for about the eighteenth time. When I re-read the scene where Gregor realizes what Miles has done, I thought, "How would that all play out? What if Miles did die? What if Gregor was left to raise their children on his own? What would he do?" Well . . . he'd hire a nanny, of course. This is that story - or her story, rather. So obviously it's an AU of our AU and will make little to no sense if you haven't read WPB.
> 
> So thanks to [](http://lightgetsin.livejournal.com/profile)[**lightgetsin**](http://lightgetsin.livejournal.com/) for writing the scene that provided the initial inspiration, [](http://dribom.livejournal.com/profile)[**dribom**](http://dribom.livejournal.com/) for the use of her laptop so that I could finish writing this story after my own died a horrible death, and [](http://firefly-124.livejournal.com/profile)[**firefly_124**](http://firefly-124.livejournal.com/), [](http://castiron.livejournal.com/profile)[**castiron**](http://castiron.livejournal.com/), [](http://quietann.livejournal.com/profile)[**quietann**](http://quietann.livejournal.com/), and [](http://jaebi-lit.livejournal.com/profile)[**jaebi_lit**](http://jaebi-lit.livejournal.com/) for beta reading.

_It's not a way out. It's only a way on. But if that is all, that is enough. _  
\- What Passing Bells, Chapter 13

The first time Helena met the Emperor, she was too worried about falling out of her dress to be properly terrified. The dress was her sister's, and though it was much nicer than anything Helena owned, it had the tendency to gape. While her cleavage might have helped her land a job or two in the past, she suspected that Emperor Gregor Vorbarra was not likely to be impressed.

She tugged at her neckline, wished her palms would stop sweating, and thought that perhaps it was just as well that she was distracted by potential wardrobe glitches. An interview with the Emperor was not something that could be adequately prepared for, it seemed, even if one had spent years skirting the backstage areas of the high Vor pageant.

"Miss Renault?" the Emperor's majordomo said.

"Yes," she said, forcing her hands away from her cleavage. She stood and smoothed her skirts.

"The Emperor will see you now."

"Thank you," she said, and followed him back through hallways that twisted and turned until she was thoroughly turned around. She was aware that they were passing out of the public wing of the Residence and into quieter realms, with more luxurious carpeting and some very expensive art adorning the walls. They fetched up at last in front of a nondescript, unlabeled door. Helena's stomach turned over.

"The Emperor's private apartments, miss," he clarified with a significant lift of an eyebrow.

_Oh hell._ Helena gulped. "I think there's been a mistake," she managed, her voice unnaturally high. "I mean, I thought we – that is, I had been told the interview would take place in the Emperor's office."

"The Emperor prefers to interview you here."

"Ah –" she said, a trifle less squeakily. "Of course. Thank you." _Help._

The majordomo showed her in to a small, green parlor, with a finely carved, highly polished oak table and two chairs built more for style than comfort. There was a frosty pitcher of water and two crystal glasses on the table, and she resisted the urge to pour herself some while she waited, standing, with her hands clasped before her. The Emperor would not be long, the majordomo assured her before withdrawing, and indeed only a few minutes passed before the door to – presumably – his inner sanctum slid open and he appeared.

He was . . . tall. Tall and lean, and handsome, albeit in a stern sort of way, Helena thought, while dropping into the curtsy she'd practiced for more than an hour before a mirror that morning. She thought he might have been more handsome if he'd not been wearing his House blacks, as he had for the last eighteen months. They made him look severe and very pale.

"Miss Renault," he said, and pressed her hand between his. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Please have a seat."

"Sire," she said, and tried to surreptitiously check the state of her cleavage and lower herself into her chair with a modicum of grace at the same time. He produced a folder she hadn't realized he'd been carrying – a thick binder, actually, the front emblazoned with the ImpSec logo and her name in stark, official lettering. She'd seen it already, gone over every page of it with General Allegre, in fact, but it still unsettled her.

"You have an impressive résumé," he remarked, opening the binder. "First-class degree in child development from Vorbarr Sultana University, two years with the Vortindes, two and a half with the Vorlopouloses. All with stunning recommendations. Very impressive."

"Thank you, Sire."

"Of course," he said, glancing up, "there were many candidates with very impressive résumés. But General Allegre and I only chose a very few of them to meet with me. Two, to be exact."

She didn't quite know what to say to that. "Thank you, Sire, for the opportunity," she finally said, dipping her head.

"I met with your competition this morning. Would you like to know what she was like?" the Emperor asked, leaning back in his chair. He steepled his fingers and eyed her until she wanted to squirm.

"It would be highly unprofessional of me to ask," she said, drawing herself up instead.

"I suppose it would be. Well," he said, snapping the binder shut, "I'll tell you anyway. She was impressive. She's thirty years older than you are. Very experienced, very competent, highly . . . professional, as you say." He paused, as though waiting for something.

She held her breath, wondered if she dared. "But?" she prompted.

He smiled – or almost smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled at least, and from everything Helena had heard, that was as close as he'd gotten to a smile in the last year and a half. "But . . ." he said, "that isn't necessarily what I'm looking for."

"I see," Helena said. "If you don't mind my asking –"

"I do not," he said, with a shake of his head.

"What are you looking for, Sire?"

"Well, Miss Renault, that has been the question from the very beginning. Would you like a glass of water?" She nodded, and to her shock he poured her one himself, his hands steady on the pitcher. "I think I've driven General Allegre almost mad with this search, because I simply could not figure out what I wanted. Or rather, I can say exactly what I want, but no one can give it to me."

She blinked, and then realized what he meant. "I am very sorry for your loss, Sire," she said, wondering if it should have been the very first thing she said.

He nodded. "Thank you. But it's also my – our – children's loss, and that's why I have been so particular. They will never –" He stopped. "They are unlikely to know the love of two parents. I intend to do my very best by them and for them, but there are demands on my time that are unavoidable. Additionally, I am – it would be generous to call me inexperienced with children."

"I see," she said, and thought she did, despite his formal, somewhat stilted phrasing. The man was three months away from being a father and he was, quite simply, terrified. Moreover, he had no partner to share that anticipatory anxiety with – a situation that countless women had been acquainted with over the thousands of years of human history, but almost never, until now, a man.

"Do you? Because I'm not sure I do, frankly. But then, I think you might have more of an idea of what to expect. I – I don't . . ." He sighed. "Miss Renault, I'm not interested in this." He tapped the ImpSec file. "I trust General Allegre to have vetted you thoroughly. I'm interested in what is not in your file."

"Well," she said, "to be honest, Sire, I'm not sure there is anything about me not in my file."

There it was again, that almost-smile. "I know the feeling," he said. "But I can assure you that there is. Tell me why you became a nanny."

Well, that most certainly _was_ in the binder, but all right. "I'm the oldest of six, Sire. By the time the last one was born eight years ago, I was so used to changing diapers and settling squabbles, it just seemed the natural thing for me to do."

He nodded, but said mildly, "That explains, perhaps, why you did it during your university years, as a way of supporting yourself. But with your background and opportunities, you could have done any number of things once you had your degree."

She bit her lip, and took a few seconds to answer. She sensed, somehow, that he would not hold it against her. "The truth, Sire," she said at last, "is that I'm good at it. I like children. I like playing with children. I have a lot of patience, and children listen to me – well," she amended quickly, "most do. I offer no guarantees here." She flashed a smile, but he only nodded solemnly. "It's my gift," she continued after an awkward beat, "and it seems a waste to do something else with my life, just because it might be more prestigious."

"Do you want children of your own?"

"Someday, yes."

"Someday, but not soon?"

"I certainly have no such plans, Sire. I have no . . . attachment." Nor was she likely to meet anyone while in his employ. She knew from experience that the children would eat up every moment of time they could lay their greedy little hands on – and she would let them.

"Hmm," was all he said.

Helena cocked her head to one side. "You want to know if I will leave you while the children are young."

"Yes," he said. "I admit, that's a point in your competition's favor. She's older and more likely to stay longer. You needn't stay until they're grown, of course, but – I became all too familiar at a young age with what it was like to be left by those who were most important to me, and I'd like to spare my children the same experience. Both your previous jobs lasted less than three years."

"Both times the families had to move off-planet," she pointed out. "I would have gladly stayed longer with either of them."

"Why didn't you go with them?"

"My family is here, Sire. I didn't want to leave them. Traveling is fine," she added, before he could ask, "even if it lasts a few months, but I have no wish to leave Vorbarr Sultana permanently."

"Hmm," he said, again. He looked at her for a moment without speaking, and she had the sense that there were questions he wanted to ask, but could not. She was overwhelmed briefly by the enormity of the task she proposed to take on: raising the Emperor's children, the future of Barrayar. _Good God. It's not too late to say no, thank you. _

Except . . . it was. Though she had not yet met the children – the first was still tucked up safely in his replicator, the second not even yet begun – she had met him, this quiet, rather sad man in front of her. She'd found the story of his and Lord Vorkosigan's doomed romance moving and tragic from a distance; she had even shed a few tears while watching the holovised funeral. But after the first few weeks, she had spared little thought for his private grief. Life had gone on for everyone else, and it was only now that she realized that in many ways, it hadn't for him. Now it seemed he was trying at last to find a way forward and was scared to death that he wouldn't be able to, scared that he would end up hurting not only himself, but also the children who were all he would have left of his – of Lord Vorkosigan.

"Sire," she said softly, when he continued to look at her without speaking. She had the feeling he wasn't really seeing her anymore. "Let me help."

He raised his eyebrows as though startled. "I'm sorry?"

"I want to help you. I know it's going to be hard, raising children always is and by yourself – but I can help. I can make it easier."

"I don't want –" He took a deep breath. "I will raise my children, Miss Renault. I want you to know that. I won't have them grow up knowing me only as the man who appears when they've done something wrong."

_And just what role did Prince Serg play in your life, Sire?_ "I know," she said, without missing a beat. "And I'm glad. But you can't do it alone, you shouldn't do it alone, and I can help."

He looked at her for a long moment, during which she said nothing at all. Finally he stood, and she followed hastily. He extended his hand, and she slid hers into his. He clasped it firmly. "Please," he said.

"Thank you, Sire," she said, smiling.

"I'll let General Allegre know of my decision right away. He'll contact you within the next few hours about some bureaucratic issues."

"Yes, Sire." She gathered her things and he saw her to the door.

"It was a pleasure meeting you," he said. "Will you attend the birth?"

"If it would please you, Sire."

"It would."

"Then I will." Helena dropped him another curtsy and was escorted out the way she'd come by his majordomo. An ImpSec groundcar waited for her just outside. She glanced down as she slid in and breathed a sigh of relief; apparently she'd managed to get through the interview without falling out of her dress.

She was halfway home before she realized that something was wrong: She should have been happier. As badly as she'd wanted this job, she should have been elated. The process had taken six arduous months, after all. But the truth was that all she could think about was the Emperor, and his sad almost-smile, and hope that she could be everything he needed her to be.

*~*~*

 

The second time Helena met the Emperor, it was at the birth of his child. She'd expected a media and political circus, and there were a great many people – mostly press – camped out on the lawn outside the Residence. But inside it was surprisingly hushed, and the number of people present in the room itself was small: the Emperor, Lord Ivan Vorpatril and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, a few other people Helena didn't recognize, and – _gulp_ – the Count and Countess Vorkosigan. The major domo announced her and withdrew, leaving her in the – she tried not to think _lion's den. _

"Miss Renault," the Emperor said, with very little expression but a certain reassuring warmth nonetheless. "Thank you for coming."

"It's an honor to be here, Sire." She glanced around. "This is a lovely room." It was a glassed-in balcony that afforded a stunning view of the city, at the moment spread out in all its Midsummer splendor beneath a gloriously blue sky. An auspicious day for an Imperial birth, she had thought when she'd woken that morning.

"Thank you," the Emperor said. "I used to use it as a dining room, actually, for smaller functions, but it's . . . personally significant."

"I see, Sire," she said, though she wasn't sure she did. Something to do with Lord Vorkosigan, from his tone. She had the feeling she'd be walking into those landmines for quite some time, at least until she learned where the more obvious ones lay. The less obvious ones – well, if Helena's own, admittedly limited experience was anything to go by, not even the Emperor could know when and where to expect those.

"If you don't mind," the Emperor said, after only half a beat of awkward silence, "there are a few people I'd like you to meet." There followed then a flurry of introductions that made Helena's head spin. It turned out that unassuming gray-haired man talking to Lord Ivan was _Simon Illyan_, for heaven's sake. He seemed far more . . . benevolent than Helena had expected, all things considered. Lady Alys Vorpatril was intimidating in a completely different way, even if she didn't turn her nose up at Helena in all her prole-ness as she'd half-expected. Helena tried not to stammer too badly, but only when Lady Ekaterin gave her a wink and a smile did she think she might have succeeded.

The Count and Countess were last. She had seen them on the holovised funeral, after which they'd disappeared almost entirely from the public eye. She'd heard rumors from various sources of . . . well, of a lot of things. An estrangement between them and the Emperor, for one. Health problems for the Count, for another. It seemed that the latter, at least, was true; Helena was pretty sure he hadn't walked with a cane a year and a half ago, and though his hands engulfed her own, they were thin, cold, and trembling slightly. The Countess smiled when she shook Helena's hand and thanked her for helping them.

"My pleasure," Helena said, and privately hoped it would be true. She was coming to appreciate more and more that "a difficult situation" – as General Allegre had called it that very first interview – didn't even begin to describe it. The somber atmosphere was more befitting a wake than a birth. But she noticed suddenly that no one wore official mourning garb. Perhaps they were trying then, if not for their own sakes, then for the sake of the little one about to join them. She could only hope.

"Well then," the Emperor said, when the introductions were completed. "Perhaps we should begin." There was a singular lack of enthusiasm in his voice, Helena thought; he sounded . . . reluctant, almost. Anxious, definitely. She watched him as the medicos made a few last minute preparations, and didn't think she was imagining the slight whitening around his lips.

Helena hung back as the various family and friends – who seemed rather more eager than the soon-to-be proud papa – formed a circle around the Emperor and the replicator. The Emperor hesitated for a long moment over it, his lips moving soundlessly, his eyes squeezed shut. Then he opened them and popped both latches at the same. The top of the replicator came open and he stepped back quickly for the medical staff to sweep in and start cutting away the various organic and synthetic innards to reveal – _goodness_ – Barrayar's future Emperor. Helena stood on tiptoe to see over the shoulder of the tall gray-haired commodore in front of her. The Crown Prince was a little damp at the moment, she saw, but tiny and perfectly formed, with none of the squashed redness of body-birth babies. He seemed reassuringly unhappy as well, squalling all throughout his medical exam, until the doctor finally wrapped him in a blanket and placed him in his father's arms.

Helena had been present for a number of births before: her three youngest brothers and sisters, as well as a number of her former charges. She'd found there was a certain stunned expression, unique to that first moment when the baby was placed in a new parent's arms and it sunk in that they couldn't give this one back. She privately termed it the _Good God, what have I done?_ expression. And there was definitely some of that on the Emperor's face as he gazed down at his son, but there were other emotions warring for prominence as well, too many and too fleeting for her to read. She could not, she thought, even presume to guess what he felt in this moment. Finally, mouth twisting, he ducked his head and handed the child to the new grandmother. The Countess leaned in to ask him something and he blinked, glancing up at the rest of them at last.

"Alexander," he said, into the utter silence of the room. "Alexander Miles. Sasha."

Prince _Alexander Miles_, Helena reminded herself. _Crown Prince of Barrayar. Such a long title for someone so small._

There followed – well, Helena couldn't actually call it a party. There was food and champagne, though not enough toasting for a proper Vor gathering, in Helena's experience. She sipped at a champagne flute, nibbled at the truly superb array of appetizers , and waited for her turn to hold the Prince. He was putting up admirably with being passed around, she thought. The guests not currently holding the baby talked amongst themselves, and Helena skirted the edges of the various small groups, trying not to look like she was eavesdropping too shamelessly.

"– doesn't look well."

"He looks a sight better than he did a year ago."

"That's not saying much . . ."

True enough, Helena thought, glancing toward the Emperor. In the months right after the Lord Vorkosigan's death, rumors had circulated about the Emperor's health. The whispers had been fed by a string of holovids of him looking gaunt and exhausted, until many people were of the opinion of it wasn't merely a matter of a broken heart, but something much more serious, some grave malady concealed. The rumors had been quashed quickly enough, but suspicions had lingered for months, until time eventually did what the Emperor's public relations team couldn't quite manage. Now, in Helena's opinion, he merely seemed too thin and too weary.

"– think he'll manage to ram it through the Council?"

"Who would dare vote against it? We need a real heir. And for better or worse . . ."

"Somehow I don't think they'll see it that way."

"Leave it to Gregor. He knows what he's doing."

"I hope you're right . . ."

Helena suddenly viewed the small gathering with different eyes. She'd assumed it was out of deference to the bittersweet circumstances of the birth, but she'd somehow forgotten that Prince Alexander wasn't quite . . . legitimate. She knew – everyone knew – that the Emperor and Lord Vorkosigan had been officially betrothed in a hasty bedside ceremony just before he slipped into his final coma, but there was a faction that called its legitimacy into question on several counts: They said it had lacked unbiased witnesses, proper ceremony, decorum, tradition. Lord Vorkosigan had never been confirmed by the Council. And in any case, the Emperor's adversaries argued when pressed to the last, betrothal wasn't marriage.

And yet . . . Helena didn't pretend to know much about high Vor politics – or any other kind of politics – but she thought it might be rather more difficult to argue against a living, breathing Imperial scion. She bet the Emperor was banking on that as well.

"– think of the nanny?"

"She seems very nice, but rather young. I confess, I had thought Gregor might choose someone a bit more experienced –"

"Miss Renault?"

Helena jumped. Countess Vorkosigan, who held the Prince and looked positively aglow with grandmotherly satisfaction, smiled. "I'm sorry for startling you. I was wondering if you would like to hold Sasha?"

"Yes, of course," she said, and accepted him from the Countess. She tucked him close, arranging the blankets around his face, and couldn't help staring in fascination. The Prince's eyes were closed, his perfect little bow of a mouth making a suckling motion, as though he were dreaming of nursing. Helena glanced up, feeling suddenly as though she'd been neglecting her duties – no matter that there were easily a dozen people, eager and able to see to the Prince's needs, in this very room. "Countess, do you know if someone fed him?"

The Countess nodded, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a way that made Helena recall Gregor's own near-smile. "Gregor gave him his first bottle, just a few minutes ago." She paused, clearly observing Helena with her grandson and probably trying to decide if she approved or not. At last she made a noise of – well, Helena certainly hoped it was satisfaction, because God help her if it wasn't. "Would you mind if I had a word?"

"Not at all," Helena said, and allowed the Countess to steer her away from the crowd, toward the large windows facing the city, which was now glowing faintly in the setting sun. She waited for the Countess to begin, and, when she didn't, tried to find more ways to fuss with the young Prince.

"I'm very glad you came today," the Countess said, just when Helena had started to think she would never speak at all.

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," Helena said. "I've found that it makes a significant difference, whether or not I'm present for the birth."

"Yes, I imagine it does," the Countess said, and then did not continue. Helena started fidgeting, under the guise of swaying to soothe the baby, who looked perfectly content in his cocoon of blankets. The Countess watched, one hand clasped over the gleaming black onyx at her throat, until – at long last – she blinked and seemed to see Helena once more. "I'm sorry, dear," she said, shaking her head. "Today has been rather fraught."

"I understand, Countess."

"I'm not sure you do, entirely." She sighed. "It should have been their first anniversary, did you know?"

Helena blinked. "No," she said. "The original, um, intended date of the wedding was never made public."

"That's right. I'd forgotten." The Countess looked almost startled. "Well, it would have been. That should give you some idea of Gregor's . . . mental state. I think it might be too soon for this, but there's certainly no turning back now."

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Helena said awkwardly. "How long will you and the Count be staying?"

"We've moved back to Vorbarr Sultana," the Countess said, with a strange twisting of the mouth that did not seem entirely happy. "We want to enjoy our grandson." Helena followed her gaze across to the room to the Emperor, who was chatting half-heartedly with Lord Ivan and his wife, but really just staring in bewildered adoration at his son in Helena's arms. _Less than an hour and you're utterly besotted. Excellent._ That stood to make Helena's job easier; nothing was worse than a parent who didn't care, and those were a dime a dozen among the Vor, Helena had found. "And I fear," the Countess added, looking back at Helena, "that we have been . . . remiss in certain other areas."

"I'm sorry?" Helena said.

"After Miles died . . . that was such a terrible time for all of us, and such things can either draw people together or drive them apart. I'm afraid that in our case it was the latter. Hindsight isn't very useful, and at the time it felt like there was nothing else we could possibly do, but now, I think it was the very worst thing we might have done." She looked away, out the window and over and beyond the Midsummer glory of the city.

So the rumors of an estrangement had been on target, at least to some extent. _Difficult situation, indeed. What in the world have you gotten yourself into? _

Fortunately the Countess didn't seem to expect a reply. After brief pause, she drew a deep breath and said, glancing back toward Helena, "In any case, I thought you should know. We've dug ourselves a great, dark, muddy hole and all jumped in together, and now we're trying to get out. Not the best circumstances in which to have a child, but he does provide incentive." She smoothed the thick thatch of dark hair that lay curling on Sasha's forehead.

_Do they expect the Prince to be the one standing at the top of that great dark hole, holding the rope and hauling them up one by one?_ Helena wondered a bit desperately. Or was that to be her job? Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face, because the Countess suddenly gave a short, startling laugh, and lay a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry, Miss Renault," the Countess said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't," Helena lied. Though truthfully, at this point she hardly felt it mattered. She'd been scared ever since she'd accepted the position. Now she had a list of security codes and blueprints of the Residence to memorize, and tomorrow Allegre was going to make her demonstrate the steps she should take if the Residence were ever taken by force. Presumably she'd never need to know, since the Prince's personal security force would be there, but just in case . . . Truly, it was the just-in-cases in this job that were going to be the death of her. What were a few family issues on top of that? As a nanny, she'd been privy to more than her fair share of awkward family moments. She doubted anything the Vorkosigans and the Emperor might come up with could rival the pure mental trauma of walking in on Lord Vortinde and his mistress on the dining room table.

"Well," the Countess said, not looking as though she believed Helena one bit. "I'm glad Gregor chose you."

"You don't –" Helena cleared her throat. "You don't think I'm too young?"

"No, I'd say you're just young enough," the Countess said. "I've seen your file, and the file of the person who came in second. A bit of youthful energy is just what we need, I think. And a sense of humor. If raising one half of his genetic parentage was any indication," she added wryly, "you're going to badly want both." She held her arms out for her grandson, and Helena relinquished him. "No," she said, tucking her grandson close once more, "you'll do fine, Helena. Just fine." She winked as she turned away, almost conspiratorially, and Helena somehow managed a smile in return. She only hoped it looked more certain than she felt.

*~*~*

 

After that, Helena lost track of how many times she met the Emperor. Their days settled into a comfortable, domestic routine that was unusual only in how quickly and easily it established itself. In all her previous jobs, Helena had experienced a period of awkwardness, while she and the family adjusted to each other; she had expected much of the same here, but she proved strangely and happily mistaken.

The Emperor made a habit of eating breakfast in the nursery after his morning security briefing. There were always groats and eggs laid out, but he never touched them until after he'd given Sasha his first bottle of the day. This gave Helena, who was not really a morning person by nature (and who was also up several times a night with the prince), the chance to eat something and, even more importantly, drink a cup of coffee. When the bottle was empty, the Emperor handed the Prince to Helena, who propped him on her shoulder and rubbed his back until he gave a princely burp. The Emperor usually stayed to drink a cup of strong black coffee and pick at a bowl of groats. The first time this had happened, Helena had been left with the unnerving question of how to make small talk with the Emperor, but that had turned out not to be a problem. She found she could ramble at length about pretty much anything having to do with the Prince and the Emperor would – well, not so much listen as smile and nod politely while staring in paternal fascination at the little bundle on Helena's shoulder.

She saw him in the evenings as well, whenever his day ended or he had a short break. If he came early enough, he often gave the Prince his bath or sat with him and his bottle in the elegantly carved antique rocking chair by the window. After a few attempts at conversation, Helena resigned herself to the sofa and a handviewer, and left the Emperor and the Prince to each other. It was a few minutes of quiet in a job that left Helena with very little time to herself. She often found herself ignoring her handviewer in favor of enjoying the gentle creep of the day's end, the quiet creak of the rocking chair, and the change in light from bright sunset to deep, mellow twilight.

Six weeks after he was born, Sasha was confirmed by the Council of Counts as the Crown Prince of Barrayar and Heir to the Imperium. What would have normally been taken as a given had been considerably more complicated, as Helena understood it. A spate of public appearances by the Prince in the days preceding had helped win public opinion onto his side, and then the Emperor had . . . well, Helena wasn't exactly sure what he'd done, except that it made him seem even more weary than usual during his evening visits to the nursery. All the same, she thought as the confirmation drew closer, he seemed less stretched than he had when they had first met. Wearied as he was by the confirmation process, it was not the same bone-deep weariness she had sensed in him at the beginning. It was normal tiredness from too much to do and only twenty-six hours a day to do it in.

All the same, she was glad for both father and son when the confirmation passed successfully and she was able to retire the very stiff and much-despised Vorbarra House uniform in miniature. All it was lacking to be truly and properly Vor-ish, the Countess had pointed out dryly, was Baby's First Dress Sword. Helena was very glad that someone had shown uncommon good sense and she would not have to worry about being skewered while changing his diaper.

A week after the confirmation, Helena asked for and received the evening off to go home for her sister's birthday. The family evening, the first she'd been able to attend since the Prince's birth, was a welcome respite, but also strangely awkward; her family, though very proud, still didn't quite know what to make of her new appointment. She was a little discomfited by the whole experience, and felt more grateful than she would have thought to catch an autocab back to the Residence.

She had expected to find the nursery dark and still, as the Prince should have been put to bed hours ago. But to her surprise there was a sliver of light under the door. She pushed it open silently and found that the light over the rocking chair had been left on, albeit dimly, and the Emperor was there, asleep with the Prince in his arms.

She hadn't the faintest idea what she should do. The Prince seemed secure enough, and very content, and she knew the Emperor suffered from insomnia; he often came into the nursery late at night, giving purpose, she suspected, to his sleeplessness. Attuned as she was to the slightest noise from the nursery, she inevitably awoke, and lay awake, listening, until he left again. Thus, she was loathe to wake either of them. But the Emperor was sleeping with his head on his shoulder, which she knew would give him a terrible crick and possibly a headache come morning. Finally – gathering up her courage – she placed a hand lightly on the Emperor's shoulder.

He woke instantly, with a startled gasp. "Sorry," Helena said, at first freezing and then snatching her hand back. "I'm sorry, Sire, I just got in and you were –"

"No, thank you," he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I would have been in no fit state tomorrow if I'd spent all night in this chair. I didn't mean to fall asleep at all."

Helena lowered herself to sit on the edge of the ottoman across from him. "Holding a baby is very soothing," she said. "I've often found it to be so."

"Yes," the Emperor said, staring down at his son in bemusement. "I admit, I never expected . . ." Caught up in sudden parental fascination, he didn't finish his sentence. At last he looked up, as though startled to find her there, and said, "I'm sorry, Miss Renault. How was your evening?"

She blinked. "Fine, Sire," she said.

"Your family is well?"

"Yes, very," she said, and when he continued to look at her, she felt compelled to add, "A little strange at the moment, but very well."

"Strange?" he repeated. Helena was reminded that he'd been an orphan since the age of five; that he had no siblings; that he had known family, perhaps, in the Vorkosigans and their wide network of extended friends and relations, but he might still find the closeness of a family like her own to be somewhat fascinating.

"They don't know quite what to make of, um, this," she said, with a gesture that encompassed the nursery, the Prince, and himself. "Or, well, I think it's more that they don't know what to make of me, now."

"Certainly they're proud of you."

"Oh yes, of course, but . . . families always remember everything about you, especially the stupidest and most embarrassing things you ever did in your life." She made a helpless gesture, and, since the Emperor was looking at her as though he expected her to go on, continued recklessly, "When I was six and he was two, I fed my younger brother dog kibble." His face broke into a rare real smile, and she smiled back, pleased to have amused him. "So you see, they're a little baffled by why I should now be put in charge of helping to raise the Crown Prince. Pleased, but just a little puzzled." She had, of course, expected a lot of good-natured teasing; that her family might be too _intimidated_ to do so had never occurred to her until this evening.

"I see," he said, in a grave tone belied by his smile. "I have to say, Miss Renault, that incident was not mentioned in your ImpSec file."

"Wasn't it?" she replied. "I thought for certain it was."

"How did you get him to eat it?"

She grinned outright at the memory. "I told him it was chocolate breakfast cereal. He ate the whole bowl, apparently never noticing that it tasted nothing like chocolate. Honestly, Sire, I'm not sure who comes off worse in that story, him or me."

The Emperor smiled again, leaning his head back and looking pleasantly sleepy. "Once, when we were growing up," he said, turning his head a little to the side, "Miles dyed the water in the fountain in the entrance hall yellow."

Helena laughed, covering her mouth with her hand so as not to wake the Prince. The Emperor was smiling, and rocking a little at the same time. "I have a dozen stories like that," he said. "He was always up to something, from the moment he could walk. Occasionally I took the blame, since I was less likely to be punished, but I think his parents always knew who was behind everything."

"Parents usually do," she agreed.

He sighed, his faint smile dropping away. "I worry I won't."

She tilted her head to match the angle of his own. "You will, Sire."

He shook his head. "Miles would have, I believe. It's so odd," he said, not looking at her. "When he died, I never expected to be even as content as I am now. But in some ways, I miss him so much more than I ever did before." He paused, rocking almost imperceptibly, and Helena held her breath. She would not have spoiled these precious confidences for anything in the world. "Grief is strange," he finished, and looked to her at last. "Have you lost someone?"

"My maternal grandmother," Helena answered quietly. "I was named for her. We were very close, especially since she lived with us for the last few years of her life." But losing a grandmother was different, it was the natural order of things. It was not like losing Lord Vorkosigan must have been. "I've been lucky, I suppose, Sire."

He nodded, and said nothing. He needed rest, she thought, eyeing the dark shadows under his eyes, but seemed reluctant to leave. "Would you like a cup of tea, Sire?"

"Oh," he said, stirring at last in the chair, "no, thank you, Miss Renault. It is very late. But perhaps another time?"

"Gladly, Sire." She watched as he went to the crib and tucked Sasha in carefully, hands lingering over the blankets. She stood and waited awkwardly until he had finished fussing. When at last he turned back to her, she saw that whatever had made him so honest and open just now was gone.

"Good night, Miss Renault," he said, with heavy formality.

She responded with equal formality, and concealed her disappointment in her nod. "Good night, Sire."

*~*~*

 

When he was nearly two years old, the Crown Prince got a little brother, Prince Aral Serg, Lord Vorkosigan and heir to the Vorkosigan Countship. His birth could not have been more different from that of his older brother; there was no hushed, wake-like atmosphere, no whisperings about his legitimacy or rumbles about the timing. It was held in a small, comfortably appointed parlor rather than the glassed-in dining room, the significance of which she now understood all too well. Attendance was still limited to close family and friends, but there was a great deal of excited murmuring as the Emperor prepared to pop the latches on the replicator.

Far from being relegated to the fringes this time, Helena, the Crown Prince balanced on her hip, stood with the Count and Countess Vorkosigan. The Countess, hands clasped together in clear grandmotherly eagerness, graced Helena with a wink and a smile, which she returned. Her initial intimidation aside, Helena had found a useful and unexpected ally in the Countess, who was more willing than most to say things that generally Were Not Said, especially when it related to Lord Vorkosigan. Helena had found herself badly in need of a clue on occasion in the last two years, and the Countess had provided it without ever making her feel awkward or ignorant for not having known. Add to that the fact that she was nearly the only person who could make Sasha mind when he was not in the mood to do so, and she had quickly become one of Helena's very favorite people.

Sasha suddenly gave an unusual emphatic wriggle in Helena's arms. She shifted him subtly so he could see better, and he stared around at the proceedings with wide gray eyes. He was clearly confused and no wonder – for what may well have been the first time in his short life he was not the center of attention. Despite both the Emperor and Helena's best efforts over the last nine months, it seemed that Sasha had not quite grasped the changes that were about to occur in his life. Helena kept one eye on the replicator and one eye on the Prince as the medicos cut tiny, squalling Lord Vorkosigan out of the replicator, and then washed and examined him. Sasha seemed merely bewildered and a bit curious at first, but as the noise went on appeared more and more annoyed. He squirmed and scowled, grabbing a fistful of her dress and finally demanding, "_Stop_, Miss Heyena, _stop_ it."

_In about a year and a half, if we're lucky._ She hugged him tighter and said, "You cried too, when you came out of the replicator."

"Did not!"

She smiled at him, trying to distract him from the fact that his Papa was holding the new baby now, and soon his beloved grandparents would be too. "Think about it, sweetie. You're in there where it's all dark and warm and cozy, and then you come out and it's cold and loud and everything is too bright."

He seemed to consider this, turning back to watch. The Emperor, still tall and handsome and rather severe, but much less pale, held the new baby with a practiced ease he'd not possessed at Sasha's birth. Sasha, who was definitely beginning to grasp that _baby brother_ meant (for the moment at least) mainly _annoying crying bundle of blankets that will take attention away_, scowled mutinously. When the Emperor handed the young lord over to Count Vorkosigan, the frown deepened even further, and Helena, sensing that the festivities were about to be marred by a truly royal temper tantrum, caught the Emperor's eye. He reached over immediately to take Sasha from her, leaning in to whisper something Helena couldn't hear to his – now oldest – son. Sasha's scowl lightened considerably, but did not vanish.

"Perhaps, Sire, Prince Sasha would like to hold Prince Aral," Helena suggested diffidently.

The Emperor cast her a relieved look and nodded. "Yes, an excellent idea, Miss Renault." There followed a short flurry of activity; Helena settled Sasha on a settee and sat on one side while the Emperor sat on the other, the better to keep the baby from rolling off Prince Alexander's lap and onto the floor. The other guests gathered round at a respectful distance, and the Countess settled her youngest grandchild on her oldest grandchild's lap. Everyone held their breath. Aral blinked deep blue, unfocused eyes up at Sasha, who stared down at him in dubious fascination.

"He's your little brother," the Emperor said softly to Sasha. "So you need to help us take care of him." Sasha didn't answer, but reached out to touch the thatch of dark, damp hair on top of the baby's head with a promisingly gentle finger.

"He looks like you did, Prince Alexander, when you were a baby," Helena said after a moment. "Don't you think so, Sire?"

The Emperor cleared his throat. When he glanced up, she saw that his eyes were rather bright. Her own throat tightened unexpectedly in sympathy. "Yes," he said, only a little roughly. "You both look like your Da."

Helena knew better than to contradict him in this, since it was clearly what he wished to believe, and perhaps it was only that she had never met Lord Vorkosigan in person, but she thought that they both had a profile very much like the Emperor's. Sasha, certainly, was coming to resemble him more and more, though what was genetics and what was hero-worshipping imitation, she couldn't say. Still, there was definitely something of Lord Vorkosigan in him as well: the gray eyes, for one, and perhaps certain mulish tendencies.

Sasha's patience lasted only a few minutes longer. He began to squirm, and when the Emperor reached to take Aral away, he didn't protest in the slightest. He slid off the settee and, tugging on Helena's hand, asked plaintively if he could have one of the cream cakes laid out on the table. She let him have two, an unexpected treat, and then took him off for his nap, where he demanded four long stories in exchange for consenting to lie down quietly. He would have demanded more, Helena suspected, except halfway through the last story the exertions of the morning caught up with him and he fell asleep despite himself.

She left him with one of the maids to look after him, and returned to the party, which had shrunk somewhat. Lord Ivan and Lady Ekaterin remained, as did Lady Alys and Simon Illyan, and of course the Vorkosigans, but everyone else seemed to have left. The Emperor offered her a glass of champagne and she accepted, not wanting to seem too greedy to hold her new charge. But he must have seen something in her face, because he did not make her wait very long.

She had missed having a baby to hold, she thought, as she quietly removed herself and went to sit on one of the window seats. Though the arrival of Prince Aral meant that she was about to have a good deal more to do and a good deal less sleep, she found herself glad of it. They had perhaps waited longer than they ought to have done, she thought, glancing up from her considerationat last and seeing Count Vorkosigan sitting with his wife, their hands clasped together. It was not inconceivable that the last two years could have seen the Vorkosigan Countship come empty without an heir.

"And what do you think, Miss Renault?" the Emperor asked, startling her. In her contemplation of the new prince, she had not heard him approach.

"Think, Sire?" she replied, making room for him on the window seat.

He reached out and let the baby grab his finger in one tiny fist. "I'd like your professional opinion."

She blinked, and then realized he was making a very rare, very dry joke. She smiled. "All fingers and toes accounted for, Sire. A good head of hair, always an excellent sign. And a sweet disposition, it seems, which stands to make my job easier. All in all, Sire, he's the handsomest baby I've ever seen, excepting Prince Alexander, of course."

"Of course," he agreed, returning her smile. He went on smiling at the baby, who blinked up at him very slowly with an extremely grave expression.

"In perfect seriousness, Sire," she said quietly, "he is indeed a beautiful baby."

"Thank you."

Later that night, after the celebratory dinner had ended and both children were in bed, Helena settled herself in her small room with her handviewer and a cup of herbal tea, listening closely for the cries from the nursery that would inevitably come. She had barely sat down, however, when there came a quiet knock at her door – and not the nursery door, but the other one, which hardly anyone ever used. She had no idea who might come knocking at this hour, except, perhaps, the Emperor. But he always used the nursery door, and waited until she had invited him for tea before entering her apartment. She glanced into the mirror to make sure she was presentable, and opened the door.

It was, in fact, Countess Vorkosigan. Helena blinked. "Countess Vorkosigan, I – please come in."

"I'm sorry for surprising you like this," the Countess said, stepping inside. "I'd hoped to be able to have a word with you this evening, but you were rather occupied."

"Yes," Helena said ruefully. Convincing Sasha to eat his potatoes and not smear them in his hair or anywhere else was quite the challenge these days. "Would you like some tea?"

"Thank you, yes." She sat in Helena's one armchair – the same one the Emperor always sat in when she had him for tea – and glanced around. "I've always thought this was rather small. Have you thought about asking Gregor for something larger? I'm sure it could be arranged."

"It's not too small for just one person," Helena replied, pouring hot water over the tea leaves and wondering what in the world the Countess was doing here. "It's connected to the nursery, and that's really all that matters, after all, especially now, with the baby."

"Hmm," the Countess said, accepting her tea with a smile. "And that's quite all right for you? I've often wondered at Gregor's decision not to hire a night nurse."

"He asked my opinion on the matter, Countess, and I said I would do just fine without one. Children don't react very well when they wake in the middle of the night to a relative stranger, after all. And there are a number of maids who assist me on a regular basis."

"True," the Countess said, sipping her tea. "You're very dedicated."

"Thank you, Countess. I take my job seriously."

"Gregor thinks highly of you, you know. He speaks of you often."

Helena felt the back of her neck and her ears turn red. She ducked her head. "Thank you, Countess."

"You must know already though. You and Gregor seem to be very close friends."

Helena raised her head, startled. "I – I would not presume. I am a Servant of the Inner Chamber, Countess. Nothing more."

"Nonsense, Helena," the Countess said firmly, "you are a great deal more. To all of us, but especially to Gregor."

"Countess," Helena said, swallowing against a suddenly dry throat, "I think you misunderstand. I see the Emperor every day, of course, but we aren't – I'm not –"

"He talks to you, Helena, does he not?"

"Yes, of course, we talk about the children –"

"Not just about the children. He confides in you. He's talked to you about Miles, hasn't he?"

Helena froze. She had no idea what to make of this conversation. She had always had an easy relationship with the Countess; she admired her intelligence and her humor, and even if she hadn't her obvious adoration for her grandchildren would have endeared her to Helena anyway. In a strange way, she almost considered her a friend. Except for that very first time at Sasha's birth, she had never found her the least bit intimidating. But there was something about _this_ conversation that frankly intimidated the hell out of her. Perhaps it was the subtle set of the Countess's face, or the faint lines around her mouth. There was something just a little frightening about it all. Forbidding, even.

The Countess must have seen a flicker of Helena's thoughts on her face, because she suddenly sighed, and reached out and covered Helena's hand with her own. "I'm sorry," she said, very gently. "I'm not . . . blaming you for anything. I am, however, concerned."

Helena blinked. "Concerned, Countess?"

The Countess didn't answer immediately. She removed her hand from Helena's and took a sip of her tea. Looking down into it, rather than at Helena, she asked again, "Does Gregor talk to you about Miles?"

"Sometimes," Helena said, with the utmost care. "Usually only when he's very tired."

"He doesn't talk to us about Miles, you know," the Countess said, glancing up, and Helena sensed suddenly an air of weariness about her that she had not sensed before. "Never to Aral, anyway. Very, very rarely to me. He is afraid, I think, of what we might say if he did."

"I'm sorry," Helena said, not knowing what else she might possibly say. She had become aware, of course, of a constant tension between the Emperor and the Count and Countess. At the beginning it had been almost palpable; more recently, scarcely noticeable. But always present nonetheless. It clearly wore on the Emperor – and, it would seem now, on the Countess as well – but ultimately it was none of her business, as it fortunately seemed to have no effect on the children.

"So am I," the Countess said, glancing back down at her teacup again. "Especially because I think it's entirely our fault, and I've no idea how to change it. But," she added, straightening, "that isn't why I came." She looked at Helena, pursed her lips, and then shook her head, setting her tea aside with an almost brisk gesture. "Goodness, this would be so much easier on Beta Colony."

"Countess?" Helena asked, confused.

"Helena, do you think Gregor might be in love with you?"

The question was so sudden, so direct, so very simple, that for a moment Helena didn't think she'd heard correctly. She blinked once, then twice, opened her mouth to speak and then could not bring herself to say anything at all. The Countess watched her, and when she didn't speak, said, "I have seen no impropriety in his behavior, or in your own. Once I would have spoken to him directly, but I fear now . . ." She frowned. "Things are better between us," she said, as if trying to reassure herself, "but I fear they will never be what they once were. I thought – if he were in love with you, I thought you might know."

Helena flushed deeply. "Countess, I promise you, the Emperor would never – and neither would I. My relationship with him is purely professional. We are perhaps, as you said before, friends. We do talk, from time to time. But I would never – " She swallowed hard. "I have seen it before, Countess. It ends badly."

"I never for a moment doubted you in any of that," the Countess said. "But that isn't what I asked you. Do you think Gregor is in love with you?"

Helena swallowed. An uncharted universe, replete with possibilities, was opening in her mind. It was dizzying, strangely exhilarating, and yet – false. "No, Countess," she said, her voice strangely hollow even to her own ears. "I do not believe he is."

"I see," the Countess said. She set her teacup aside and examined Helena with unnervingly close scrutiny. "And you, Helena? Are you in love with Gregor?"

Helena hid her face behind her teacup. She had never dared to put it in such words, even to herself. She admired the Emperor greatly, enjoyed their time together, certainly. Occasionally lay awake, hoping to hear him enter the nursery so that they might drink a cup of tea together and talk about nothing in particular. She had quashed any suggestion of hiring a night nurse – which he had in fact made several times in the face of her obvious exhaustion – because it would most certainly put an end to those nighttime visits, which were not, in the strictest sense (or, if she was honest with herself, any sense), proper. To have him confide in her as he apparently did in no one else was intensely flattering and, at the same time, rather frightening. She thought him brilliant in his own, quiet way, and very perceptive. He was a wonderful father. And extremely handsome, especially on the rare occasions when he smiled. Most especially when he smiled for her.

She had assigned the innocent label _close friendship_ to all of this. Helena, who had always prided herself on her ruthless realism, suddenly felt like a naïve schoolgirl. _Oh God. What fools these mortals be – and I have been a fool indeed. What could I have been thinking?_

"Yes," she said at last, very weakly. She felt rather like she might pass out. "I rather think I am. Oh _hell_." She leaned over and put her head on her knees. "Do you think he knows?"

The Countess was silent for a long moment. "No," she said at last. "I think not. If you are right about him, then I think you need not have fear of that. Gregor has been most single-minded these last four years in his devotion to my son's memory. To his own detriment, I fear. He has never noticed the affections of anyone else. I had almost hoped, inconvenient as it would be . . ." She sighed, and Helena sat up slowly. "I do think he might feel something toward you," she continued, "but I doubt he ever examines it closely enough to recognize it for what it is. Or what it could be."

"What it can never be," Helena whispered.

"Not on Barrayar," the Countess agreed, with a note of what sounded strangely like regret. "In another time and place, you might have offered each other much happiness. And I want so badly for Gregor to be happy again."

Helena covered her face in her hands. "I wish I'd never realized."

"It is, almost certainly, easier not to realize such things," the Countess agreed. "But that is also a loss."

The Countess was right, Helena supposed. In a way she was glad to have realized. Still . . . the difficulties that suddenly presented themselves were overwhelming. She twisted her hands in her lap. "Countess, what should I do? I can't quit, not with Prince Aral just born. It would take months to hire another nanny, and I as good as promised I wouldn't leave while the children were young."

"It is, of course, your decision," the Countess said. "And I'm so very sorry, Helena, for having been to the one to force you to make it. But I will say that I believe you capable of going on as you have been, knowing what you do now."

Helena wished she felt the same. She hoped that the Emperor was as blind to others' affections as the Countess seemed to believe, or she would indeed be in trouble. She thought of all those late night conversations, here in this very room, with her sitting on her bed, very often in her dressing gown . . . _Oh God._ To go on with them would be excruciating; but to end them would be a different kind of horrible altogether, and he would never know why. Perhaps it was simply hubris to believe it would make any difference to him at all, but if he never confided in even the Count and Countess as he did in her . . .

"I won't leave," she said at last.

The Countess nodded. "I'm relieved to hear it. I doubt we could find anyone else as capable."

"Obviously I'm somewhat less capable than I thought," Helena muttered, "or I would never have gotten myself into this situation. I knew better. I _know_ better."

"Helena, I fell in love with Aral when we were on opposite sides of a war," the Countess said, with unexpected sharpness. "Perhaps that does reflect on what kind of soldier I was or wasn't, but I choose not to think so. People often fall in love when it would be far more convenient not to, but that doesn't seem to have much of an effect on anything."

Helena nodded, looking down at her hands in her lap.

The Countess set her teacup aside. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No, Countess, thank you," she said, past lips that felt rather numb.

The Countess stood then, and Helena scrambled up belatedly to see her to the door. "I am sorry," she said.

"Don't be," Helena said, just managing to smile. "As you said, to never have known would have been a different loss altogether."

To Helena's relief, the Countess seemed satisfied with this. Once she had gone, Helena sank onto the bed and put her head in her hands. _A different loss perhaps, but one I would have been blissfully unaware of. _

Never mind. It wouldn't change anything. She wouldn't let it. To lose what friendship she had with the Emperor out of mourning for what she could not have with him would be foolish and unnecessarily painful for them both.

Still, when she heard him enter the nursery that night, she lay very still in bed, feigning sleep. She prayed the young Prince wouldn't wake crying and force her to face him just yet. But all remained mercifully silent, save his quiet footsteps as he paused outside her doorway, as though hoping she'd wake, before leaving as quietly as he'd come.

In the weeks that followed, Helena could not help distancing herself. When he came to the nursery at night she pretended to be asleep if she could, and carefully did not invite him for tea if she couldn't. He seemed at first confused, and then concerned, asking her if she was sure she was happy. She said it was only that she was tired, and he seemed satisfied – no one, after all, would think it unusual, as she was up four or five times a night with Prince Aral. She breathed more easily and finally, several weeks after her visit from the Countess, she invited him for tea again. He seemed relieved. She tried not to feel more than she ought to at this, and failed.


	2. Chapter 2

Life returned to something resembling normal, although much more hectic with two children now. Mornings in particular were a trial, as Sasha had been accustomed to his father's undivided attention over breakfast, and now found that he had to share it with Aral. He was discovering, much to his dissatisfaction, that nothing he could do would make the new baby go away. Helena privately thought it good for him – he had been unavoidably spoiled until now – but his wailings gave her a splitting headache that lingered for hours. She took to waking Sasha after the Emperor had given Aral his first bottle, and tensions eased all around.

Summer came. Aral woke only two or three times a night and Sasha went to stay with his grandparents for several weeks at the long lake. Helena started actually taking advantage of the one day and one evening off she was entitled to per week, which she had not done since Aral's birth. The weather was hot but reasonably pleasant, and the Emperor often joined her and Prince Aral for leisurely strolls through the rose garden that usually ended in a picnic. Though her line about being tired had been intended only as an excuse, she realized, as summer cooled and crept into fall, that she had been well and truly exhausted.

It was amazing the changes that eight glorious hours of sleep a night (albeit not all in a row) and some time to herself each week worked in her. No longer overwrought from fatigue, she was able to push her conversation with the Countess and its accompanying revelations to the back of her mind. She was not, after all, some young ingénue. She harbored no delusions about anything. In time her feelings would fade, as unrequited love must, and until then she would take what enjoyment she could from them.

She was aware, however, as the leaves turned to red and gold and then fell, that they had not faded yet.

The first snow came three weeks before Winterfair, on one of Helena's days off. She returned to the Residence to find that Prince Alexander had pleaded, charmed, and beguiled his way into being let out to play – which was fine – and that the maids who had been assigned to the children in her brief absence had let him do so without a hat – which was certainly not. As was often the case with the first snow, it hadn't been particularly cold, but Sasha woke the next morning with a fever and a ripping ear-infection all the same. He sat on the Emperor's lap, sniffling pathetically into the finely embroidered black and silver coat of his father's House uniform, while the Residence physician, entirely unalarmed, examined him.

"Well," the physician said at last. "Nothing too terrible, Sire. Give him a dosage of this now," he handed the Emperor a bottle of syrupy red liquid, "one with lunch, and one with dinner. He should start feeling better immediately, but let me know if the fever isn't gone by this evening."

"Thank you, doctor," the Emperor said, accepting the bottle. The physician bowed himself out. Helena, who had handed Prince Aral off to one of the maids (_not_ one of the ones responsible for their current circumstances, thank you very much) at Sasha's first cough, was satisfied.

There followed fifteen minutes in which first the Emperor, then Helena, and then two of them together alternately soothed, cajoled, and begged Sasha to swallow the medicine the doctor had left. He took the first spoonful readily enough, but then spat it out all over Helena and proceeded to put up a dreadful wailing. After a quick call to the doctor to make sure it wouldn't have any detrimental effects, Helena stirred a dosage into a bowl of groats, which turned them a most unappetizing shade of pink. Sasha seemed on the verge of refusing to eat it, but the Emperor, who was running extremely late thanks to that morning's excitement, had apparently reached the end of his rope.

"Sasha," he said, in a tone so stern that Helena felt her eyes go as wide as Sasha's, "eat that _right now_."

Shocked into obedience, Sasha ate his groats and submitted to being put back to bed.

It was a very quiet day. Sasha was clingy and rather miserable, but he slept most of the morning and woke feeling better, if extremely cranky. Luckily Aral was an easy, undemanding baby, and seemed happy enough in the hands of his substitute caretakers, leaving Helena free to fuss over his older brother. The Emperor came by for lunch and then again for dinner, before leaving for an evening engagement with, apparently, the Betan and Escobaran ambassadors. The Prince's fever was indeed gone by then, but there was very little protest when Helena tucked him into bed early, though he did make her lie down with him to read their story and then would not let her up again. She read until he fell asleep and then lay in the dark, oddly comfortable and not disposed to move. He was sleeping on her arm, anyway, and she had no desire to do the entire complicated bedtime ritual over again.

She woke disoriented several hours later. Sasha had rolled away from her in the night and seemed to be sleeping deeply; it had not been he who had woken her. She sat up carefully and realized, with a start and a gasp that she managed to stifle just in time, that the Emperor was sitting in the rocking chair, watching her.

"Sire?" she whispered.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." He nodded toward Sasha. "How is he?"

She climbed out of bed, aware that she'd fallen asleep in her clothes and they were now very wrinkled and in a state of disarray. The Emperor was still half-dressed from whatever evening engagement he'd attended, in dress slacks and a fine white shirt. But he wore no shoes and his shirt was open at the throat. She could not help but think that it was a very fetching look on him.

"Would you like some tea?" she asked.

"Yes, please," he said, rising from the rocking chair to follow her into her apartment.

She turned on a light and began to prepare the tea. He did not seem particularly inclined to talk, and, as ever, she followed his lead in this. When she turned back to him at last, the tray of tea things in her hand, she could not help giving a start. In the darkness of the nursery she had not been able to see him properly, but now she could see that his eyes, though dry, were very red.

"Sire," she said, her grip on the tray tightening. "What's wrong?"

He did not answer until she'd handed him his cup of tea, with no sugar but a splash of milk, as he preferred. He sipped it and then said, with uncharacteristic hesitation, "I, um . . . while I was out this evening, I received an urgent message from Countess Vorkosigan."

"Oh no," Helena breathed, and sank onto her bed.

"Yes," he said roughly. "In his sleep, apparently. Very peaceful. I'm grateful for that."

"Sire, I'm so sorry."

"Thank you," the Emperor said. "I confess that I'm a bit . . . shocked. I shouldn't be, I know, he has been unwell for some time now. I honestly think he hung on by sheer force of will this last year, just to see Aral born." He sipped his tea, and continued, apparently expecting no response, "God, I don't know what we're going to do as far as his proxy in the Council. Appalling that we should have been caught off guard like this."

"What about . . ." Helena searched for the name of Miles Vorkosigan's brother, the strange one who was never on-planet. "Lord Mark?" she ventured at last.

The Emperor shook his head. "Miles promised him he would never have any duties that way. He's not really . . . well, to sound very old-fashioned, he's not Vor. The circumstances of his birth were very strange, to say the least. He wasn't raised here, and he doesn't quite understand us – not that I blame him. He's happier on Beta Colony, and I would be loathe to call him back for any reason. No," he sighed, "I'm afraid that, once more, Ivan is going to have to control his inherent revulsion toward anything political, at least for the next few years."

Helena, who had certainly been introduced to Lord Ivan but had never actually spoken to him, nodded uncertainly. "When will the funeral be held?" she asked.

"Soon, I expect," the Emperor said. "Usually we would have to wait for Lord Mark to make the trip from Beta Colony, but he's on Komarr at the moment, seeing to some business ventures he has there. As soon as he can get here . . . it will be a nightmare, I must warn you. He's not – he wasn't just a Count, but one of Barrayar's Great Men, and it will be a circus." He sipped his tea, which must have cooled considerably by now. "I have no desire to subject Sasha and Aral to it, but I suppose it cannot be helped."

"I suppose, Sire," Helena said, unable to keep a note of dubiousness out of her voice.

The Emperor grimaced. "Or perhaps I should tell them all to go hang themselves and send you and the children away for the duration."

Quite selfishly, she thought that sounded like an excellent idea. But it also felt rather like abandoning him to the wolves. She had the sudden desperate urge to touch him somehow; it seemed as though no one ever did, and she had the feeling that the musings about logistics and politics were but a thin layer covering a deep-seated grief. But she could not; it was unthinkable for so many reasons. She clutched her teacup, as though that would keep her from doing anything foolish. At last, when she could trust her voice again, she said, "Perhaps after the funeral, Sire, you could take some time. We could go –" she almost suggested the long lake, and then realized that might be much too fraught "– away," she finished at last. "No one would begrudge you a few weeks' mourning."

He smiled wryly at this. "You would be surprised, Miss Renault, what people begrudge me. But really, that is a fine idea. Cordelia as well, maybe. That might give us the opportunity to prepare the children somewhat."

Helena frowned. "Prepare, Sire?"

The Emperor looked down and seemed to examine his teacup closely. "Cordelia is going back to Beta Colony."

Helena thought she must have misheard. "What – I'm sorry, Sire, you must be mistaken."

"No," the Emperor said, raising his head, "would that I were. Miles knew years ago that that's what she would do, once Aral died. And now, with both her husband and her son dead, there is nothing to keep her here. I can hardly blame her. Barrayar has not been kind to her." His voice died away at the end, and Helena thought she could hear a sort of palimpsest of pain in it. _Mother, father, grandfather, all dead by his sixth birthday. Lover taken from him before they ever had a chance. And now Count and Countess Vorkosigan gone in one fell swoop. _

"I'm sorry, Sire, I just don't believe it," she said, trying to control her voice. "Perhaps once she might have – but she couldn't possibly leave you and the boys now. The Count is less than six months old, she couldn't possibly. I can't believe she would be so selfish."

The Emperor looked up. Helena knew instantly that it had been the wrong thing to say. "Please don't judge her," he said quietly but with a note of steel. "I know what it is to lose the other half of yourself, and Miles and I were together only four years. Aral and Cordelia had ten times that. It is a selfish decision, yes, but the truth is that I envy her for being able to make it. I understand, and I cannot fault her."

"Would you have left, Sire?" Helena asked. "If you could have?"

"In a heartbeat," he replied, without even stopping to think. "There were days when I couldn't stand it, being here without him. I would have given anything to be on the next ship out, except I knew how very disappointed he would have been in me if I had."

The funeral was indeed as bad as the Emperor had predicted. Helena tried to fade into the background as much as possible, but with ceremonial roles for both the children to play, it was more difficult than she would have liked. By the end of the third day, when the funeral offering was finally lit and everyone returned to Vorkosigan House for the reception, the new Count Vorkosigan in particular was fussy and unhappy. Prince Alexander, she thought, seemed more bewildered than anything else; though the Emperor had talked with him very quietly and seriously about what it meant for his grandfather to have died, it did not seem to have much sunk in. But perhaps that was for the best.

Very early the morning after the funeral, they left for the long lake, where the Count's ashes would be interred and they would all spend a few peaceful, albeit rather chilly days. Helena had expected to have her hands full keeping track of the children and making sure they did not disturb the Countess or the Emperor overly much, but it turned out not to be a problem. After his initial spurt of confidences the night of the Count's death, the Emperor had become remote and closed off for the duration of the ceremonies; at the lake he remained distant. Helena rarely saw him save at mealtimes, and sometimes not even then. The Countess, on the other hand, spent most of the children's waking hours with them, rendering Helena redundant and leaving her with rather more time to think than she might have wished for. As her certainty that the Emperor was entirely correct about the Countess's intentions grew with time, she found herself more angry than sad. The Emperor might be able to understand, she thought, but she could not, and the children certainly wouldn't.

"I know what you must think of me," the Countess said at last, late one night when Helena, checking on the children, came upon her unexpectedly in the nursery. "Please, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," she added, as Helena opened her mouth to do just that.

"It is not my place, Countess," Helena replied stiffly.

"No," the Countess said, with great sympathy. "But my leaving will hurt him. And when he's cut, you bleed."

"It will hurt the children more," she answered sharply, shying away from the Countess's unnerving perception. "How can you?"

"I made my decision years ago. Barrayar has more than her fair share of widows. If I stayed it would be worse, for everyone."

_That's what you tell yourself, at least._ It was only with the greatest self-control that Helena managed not to say this out loud. "I understand," she said finally.

The Countess shook her head. "No, you don't," she sighed, and turned away.

They stayed a week, by the end of which time Helena found herself longing for Vorbarr Sultana. She spent the last evening, after the children had gone to bed, gathering up all their possessions that had been scattered over the long stretch of the house in the last week: toys and bottles and other small possessions that might not be missed until they were back in the city, but whose absence would certainly cause a furor. Though she knew it was highly unlikely that the children could have found their way into any of them, she ended up opening doors to rooms she'd never seen before, many of which seemed to have long fallen into disuse. Some of them, with heavy, old-fashioned furniture and an air of old Barrayar that was very nearly a smell or a taste, were fascinating.

The last one, however, was different. She opened the door and was startled, and nearly blinded, by the stark reflection of moonlight on snow. It was the only light in the room, but, as the entire fourth wall was floor-to-ceiling windows, it was more than sufficient for her to see the Emperor sitting in an armchair facing outward. She froze, wondering first if this was where he had been all week, and secondly if she could possibly leave again without him discovering her. But then he stirred, looking not at her, but at her reflection in the glass.

"Is everything all right?" he asked.

"Yes, Sire. I was just packing and wanted to make sure we didn't leave anything behind."

"Ah," he said. "Yes. Thank you." He turned his head and looked at her properly for the first time. "I have just realized that this might be the last time I ever come here."

She blinked. And then, because he seemed to expect it of her, stepped inside the room. He gestured towards one of the other chairs, and she took it. She was suddenly aware that her stilted, uncomfortable conversation with the Countess had been the only one she'd had all week with anyone over the age of two. She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Why do you think that, Sire?" she asked.

"It belongs to the Vorkosigans," he said, his gaze returning to the frosty glass, "and they will shortly all be gone. There will simply be no reason."

"There might be no reason to come, Sire," she said carefully, "but nor is there any reason not to. Prince Aral is Count Vorkosigan, after all."

"True," he said. "But I think perhaps it would be for the best if I did not." He met her gaze in the window. "Did you know he died in this room?"

"No, Sire," she said, as a chill worked its way down her spine. "I didn't."

"We were betrothed here as well. Right there," he said, turning to nod towards an unassuming corner of the room. There was nothing there now, but under the influence of the moonlight and his remembering she could almost see the ghostly outline of a hospital bed. "He wanted me to go on. That's why we were betrothed at all, that's why he made sure that I could still have our children, even if he could not be here with me."

"Sire," she whispered. Had he really spent the week in here, just him and his memories and the imaginary specter of Lord Vorkosigan?

Or . . . perhaps not so very imaginary. Helena felt, quite suddenly, a third person in the room. A powerful presence, but . . . kind. Benevolent. A little sad. And maybe . . . approving? _What, are you so superstitious? You're overwrought_, she chided herself, heart hammering, though there didn't seem to be the any danger. The Emperor did not seem to notice the – whatever it was. Or maybe he had felt it all along.

He was looking at her. "Sire?" she said again, desperately.

"It's time," he said with quiet conviction, and just as suddenly as it had come, the feeling was gone. "His last gift to me was the rest of my life. I didn't want it. It felt . . . unfaithful. But now I find I do want it, more than I ever expected to."

There was a strange kind of satisfaction in his voice, an evenness to his tone that she had not expected. It unaccountably warmed her. She swallowed. "I'm glad, Sire."

"So am I," he said.

*~*~*

 

For months after their return to the city, Helena did not know what consequences the Emperor's realization would have, or if indeed there would be any at all. Perhaps it had been a purely internal epiphany. But she had thought that it had carried the weight not only of a revelation, but of a decision as well, and so she waited, with a certain amount of trepidation. While lying in her bed that last night at the lake house, she had allowed herself exactly five minutes to fantasize about what it might be like if he had been talking about her in particular; if, when he thought about the rest of his life, he thought about her. Then she had put a stop to all such musings. _That way lies madness_, she had thought, and forced herself to sleep.

And yet, when the consequences came – nearly a year after the Count's death and six months after the Countess's departure for Beta Colony – Helena was wholly unprepared for them.

It was a few weeks after Helena's thirtieth birthday, an event that had unnerved her, as she supposed it should. She'd had the evening off to go home to a family party, but had returned to find a small bouquet of yellow and pink roses waiting for her in her room, along with a card.

_Thank you for the help you have given me and my family these last few years. I don't know how we would have managed without you. Happy Birthday. _

It had been left unsigned, but Helena had seen enough notes and missives in the Emperor's hand by now to know who had sent it. She had very nearly cried, although she knew quite well that he had meant nothing more by it than a gesture of friendship, gratitude, and well wishes. A week later, when the flowers finally began to droop, she took one and pressed it. She was behaving ridiculously, more like an infatuated schoolgirl than a grown woman, and wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps it might not be wise to make a clean break of it. But she could not; she was far too deeply entrenched, and even the slightest attention from him was better than none at all.

And then, barely six weeks later on an unassuming evening after the children had gone to bed, the Emperor looked at her over his teacup, drew a deep breath, and said, "Miss Renault, I want you to be one of the first to know. I've met someone."

She nearly choked. "I'm sorry, Sire?" she managed.

"I've met someone," he said again, a note of happiness in his voice that she'd heard only rarely, albeit more frequently this past year. "I wasn't looking for it," he went on, when she continued to gape at him, "but . . . there it is."

"That's wonderful, Sire," she said, aware that it sounded very wooden and yet unable to do anything about it. "Who?" Mentally she ran through the list of counts and heirs and other eligible Vor men who came into his circle with some frequency. None of them had been around more than usual of late, at least not to her knowledge, but then, how would she really know?

"Laisa Toscane."

It took Helena a full thirty seconds to process this. A woman. A Komarran, too, a very prominent one. But . . . a woman. Her hands shook.

The Emperor, she realized at last, was watching her with some confusion. "It surprised me as well," he said with a questioning lilt, as though he were offering her an explanation for her own behavior.

_I don't think surprise is nearly a strong enough word._ "I . . . congratulations, Sire. Have you, um, asked her?"

"Just tonight," he said, and smiled at what was obviously a pleasant memory. "I want her to meet the children as soon as possible. Will you help me prepare them?"

"Yes, of course, Sire," she managed. This was unbearable, she couldn't stand it anymore. She stood and began to gather up the tea things, though he was not quite finished with his cup. Normally this would have been unthinkably rude, and he was visibly nonplused by her reaction, but all she could think was, _How can you not know? How could you be so oblivious?_

"I'd like to speak to them tomorrow," he said, standing. "Perhaps over breakfast? Laisa is coming tomorrow evening for dinner."

"That sounds very wise, Sire," she said, seeing him to the door.

He looked down at her for a few seconds, in obvious puzzlement. "Are you well?" he asked at last.

_Not at all._ "Yes, Sire, of course. Just . . . tired."

He nodded, but did not seem satisfied by this transparent lie. "Good night then."

"Good night, Sire," she said, and closed the door behind him.

She staggered to her bed and collapsed upon it, staring up at the ceiling. It was not just her hands that were shaking now. A man – a man she had expected, in some corner of her mind, ever since that night at Vorkosigan Surleau. A man she could have handled; he would probably not have replaced her with the children, for one, and she would never have had to wonder what he had that she did not. A question of sexual orientation was easier to assimilate, somehow. But a woman was different. She wondered, in despairing simplicity, why he wanted Laisa Toscane and not _her._

It was a silly question and Helena knew it. Laisa Toscane was one of _those_ Toscanes, a member of the Komarran Council, and very highly placed in the Komarran Shippers' Syndicate. Helena was the nanny. A friend, perhaps, as much as a servant ever could be, but no more. It was not, as she had comforted herself by thinking for nearly two years now, that he _could_ not desire her that way; it was simply that he did not. He would never even consider it.

In the years since that revelatory conversation with the Countess, she had rarely allowed herself to consider the physical aspect of her feelings for him beyond his immediate presence. He was handsome, and wore elegant cologne, underlain by an enticing scent of clean male, that often cut straight through the frontal lobe to the back of her brain and made the tips of her ears turn red. But it had seemed . . . invasive somehow, not to mention inappropriate, to think of him sexually when he could never think of her the same way. If she had not managed to suppress her feelings altogether, at least she had managed to contain them, to make them a little less embarrassingly visceral. But now, for not even a full minute, she indulged the rather embarrassing fantasy, which had apparently bloomed in the back of her mind without her conscious knowledge, that one of their late night teas had ended very differently. She had very little experience herself on which to base such judgments, but she thought he might be a careful lover, very considerate and perhaps charmingly unsure of himself.

She had never met Laisa Toscane, knew only the barest minimum about her from having heard the Emperor mention her on occasion. But she thought she could easily grow to hate her.

The next day was, quite simply, horrible. Sasha was confused but agreeable about the entire venture; Aral was, of course, too young to understand. Helena dressed them carefully for the dinner, per the Emperor's instructions, and, since he had invited her to dine with them, herself as well. She would much rather have retreated to the nursery, but the Emperor had not left her that option.

The most wretched thing about the whole situation, Helena thought during the interminable dinner, was that under other circumstances, she might have very much enjoyed Dr. Toscane's company. The woman was certainly intelligent, and she was obviously gifted with children; in the course of the conversation it transpired that she had a host of younger cousins with whom she had spent much time. The Princes warmed to her immediately, to the Emperor's obvious delight. They were young enough still, Helena thought, that they might yet accept her as a mother. She experienced such a white-hot sting of jealousy at the idea that she nearly lost her breath. It simply could not be borne that this woman would get to share his life while she, who had been present at the births of both his children, who had cared for them when they were sick, who had sat with him when he was sleepless or worried or anxious, who had watched him grieve for his lost lover and lost opportunities – she would get nothing at all.

When dinner ended she took the children back to the nursery and put them to bed. Then she sat, neglected handviewer in hand, and waited for him. Perhaps the best thing she could do would be to resign, right now, before this could go any further. But she could not desert the children a bare six months after their grandmother had left, and leaving now had the extremely unpleasant odor of running away. She was not married to the idea of personal honor as many of the Vor were, and yet . . . she had had honor enough to serve him, and serve him very well, these past years. If she left now, she thought that might no longer be true.

He did not appear until nearly midnight. When she finally opened the door to his quiet knock, he was smiling. She did not want to appear miserable in the face of his happiness; indeed, she did not want to _be_ miserable, for what was love if not valuing someone else's happiness as more important than your own?

"Sire," she said carefully, standing aside to let him in. "Did you have a good evening?"

"I did," he said, continuing to smile. She wanted to scream. Instead she started making their tea. "I think dinner went well, don't you?"

"The Princes seemed to like her very much," she said, glad that her back was turned away.

"I thought they would," he said with great satisfaction. She didn't reply, and after a moment he added, "You were very quiet though. You seemed rather pale this morning as well. And last night – are you sure you're quite well?"

She cleared her throat. "I'm fine, Sire. You needn't worry about me." Schooling her features to a pleasant neutrality once more, she turned to present him with his cup.

He looked up into her face as he did so; obviously he did not believe her. "I feel I might have startled you with this," he said at last. "If so, I apologize. I confess, I hadn't quite considered what it might mean for you."

She froze. He could not – he must not – "What do you mean, Sire?" she asked, only a little breathlessly.

"If you're worried that your relationship with Sasha and Aral will change once Laisa and I are married, you needn't be. No one could ever replace you with them, I hope you know."

She let out a covert breath. "Thank you, Sire." She did not dare say anything more, about all the things that were certain to change. But then he simply went on looking at her and she could not help but add, "But you do realize – some things must change." She looked around, her gaze encompassing the two of them, their tea, even the nursery beyond. "This can't continue, once you and Dr. Toscane are married."

"No," he said, and perhaps it was only her own lovesick imagination, but she thought she detected a note of sadness in his voice. "I suppose you are right, Miss Renault. And I am sorry for that. I enjoy our time together."

"So do I, Sire." She managed it without her voice cracking, though it wasn't much more than a whisper. He was looking at her again, and she was suddenly afraid that all that focused attention from him would undo her completely. She had always taken comfort in the knowledge that his devotion to the memory of Lord Vorkosigan was more effective at concealing her emotions from him than any measure she might take. But now that seemed to have been stripped away suddenly, and she was afraid that what was left would be painfully inadequate.

*~*~*

 

A year later, on a clear winter's day with absolutely no significance whatsoever, Emperor Gregor Vorbarra and Laisa Toscane were married in the Imperial Gardens. Fortunately for her, Helena had her hands quite full with the children, though the Emperor did send a pair of maids to relieve her so that she might enjoy the dinner at least. If only he had known that he needn't have bothered; excellent as the food was, she could hardly manage a bite. She had not been aware until that very day how much she had hoped that something would happen to forestall or even prevent the inevitable.

She was glad that the Princes had to be put to bed early, and thus, she was spared the sight of the Emperor and new Empress being sent on their merry way to one of the Vorbarra properties on the outskirts of the district for the night. She would not have to see them again for nearly a week; the next morning she and the children were scheduled to leave for Vorkosigan Surleau in order to give the newlyweds some time to themselves, a plan she had greeted with mingled relief and horror.

A few servants and ImpSec agents had been sent on ahead of them, to take care of the business of re-opening the house at the long lake for them. Still, there was mustiness in the air that reminded her of how long it had gone without any inhabitants now. Houses were meant to be lived in; they tended to fall apart if they were not. The children didn't seem to notice it, of course, amidst their delight at being back at the house once more – well, Sasha's delight. Aral probably didn't remember ever having been there, but his older brother's enthusiasm was infectious. Helena found herself smiling for what felt like the first time in weeks as she wrestled them into warm clothing and hats and gloves. It took rather longer than it should have due to their impatient wriggling, and then they were off, wading through the snow while she watched from the warm cocoon of the heated front porch.

Her relief at being away from the capital and its festivities was short-lived, however. Exhausted from having spent all day playing outside, the boys fell asleep early that night, leaving time very heavy on Helena's hands. She wandered the house until she found the room where she and the Emperor had had that momentous conversation the last time they had been here. She lowered herself into the chair he'd occupied then and stared out at the snow. Two years it had been now, since that night. Two years and now he was married. She had waited and waited for her feelings to change, but they had not, not even when their late night conversations had, first, grown shorter and come less frequently, and finally ceased altogether. A smile from him over the breakfast table, a kind word about how she was doing with the children, a dry joke meant for her ears alone – these things more than sufficed to stoke the low-burning but constant dark fire of her feelings for him.

_And just how long do you expect this to go on, with no hope of anything ever changing?_ She was thirty-one years old, as her mother had begun to point out at every opportunity. "Not feeling any rush in your twenties is all well and good these days," she had told Helena a scant two months earlier. "But do you want to go through life always caring for other people's children and never having any of your own?"

Helena had evaded making any sort of reply. But . . . there was some truth in it. At the very least, it would give her a legitimate excuse for resigning.

_Is that what you're thinking about doing? Leaving them? Now, when their world is about to change in ways they can't and won't understand? How can you be so selfish?_

Her own words about the Countess, echoed back across the last two years, made her cringe. She hadn't understood then; she had not been able to understand what could possibly have made the Countess even contemplate abandoning her grandchildren and the Emperor. But now . . . she had a sudden, startling flash of unexpected sympathy. That was indeed what she was thinking of doing, and not just leaving but running – taking a job on Komarr or even Sergyar, someplace far away where she could lick her wounds and not be reminded of him every moment of every day in the faces of his sons. Yes, she understood the Countess better now than she would have liked.

The week passed slowly, punctuated by comconsole calls from the Emperor. His obvious contentment made her feel vaguely sick and cemented her resolve. She was glad she had not resigned a year ago in her initial horror at finding him capable of loving someone – a woman, even – but not her. That would have left a very bitter taste in her mouth. At least now she knew it wasn't possible; to stay would be to sacrifice her own future, and she had enough sense remaining to realize that no man – especially one who was completely out of reach and married now as well – was worth that. Nor would he ever want her to.

The night she and the children returned, there was a family dinner, to which Helena was invited. She had asked for a moment alone with him to discuss something related to the children, but there was no time before they were all seated and served in one of the smaller, cozier dining rooms in the Residence. She let the Empress take the lead with the children and was able to fade into the woodwork, sipping sparingly at a glass of wine and picking at her food. She looked up once to find the Emperor watching her, but when their eyes met he quickly glanced away.

Dessert having been eaten, the children were excused from the table. Helena started to rise as well, but the Emperor, exchanging a quick glance with the Empress, gestured her to remain seated. The Empress rose instead, and followed the children out of the room. Helena, hands twisting in her lap, watched her go with green envy before turning back to the Emperor. An Armsman topped off her glass of golden dessert wine and she took a polite sip, avoiding his gaze over the lip of her glass. There was a sad, wry tilt to his mouth that made her uncomfortably certain he knew what she was about to say.

"Sire," she began at last. "I must tender my resignation."

He sighed, appearing entirely unsurprised. "I thought so. I had hoped – is there nothing that could convince you to stay?"

"No, Sire," she said firmly. "Please, I think it would be better for everyone. The boys are a little older now – it will be easier for the Empress to become close to them without me here. And," she added, when she saw him about to protest, "I've been thinking of doing this for some time. I'm thirty-one years old, after all, and I would like children of my own."

"I see," he said quietly. "Well, I respect that. Still, I can't help thinking there must be something we can do – it would be very hard on the boys to lose you altogether. Might you be interested in staying on part-time, perhaps just in the afternoons? We could hire someone else for the mornings and evenings. You needn't even live here."

"Thank you, Sire," she said quietly, "but no. I really think it would be better for everyone if I made a clean break of it."

He studied her. Finally he nodded. "I understand," he said, and she thought that he probably did.

*~*~*

 

The morning Helena left the Residence for the last time was bright and spring-like, though it was still rather early in the year for such weather. Her final breakfast with the children, and the Emperor, Empress, and new nanny (a grandmotherly woman with a kindly air), was difficult in the extreme. Sasha was furious with her; Aral was bewildered and tearful. She hugged them both good-bye, though Sasha did his best to shrug her off, and told them to be good and not to forget her. The latter, she thought with a certain anguish, was useless wishful thinking; in a year's time Aral would barely remember her at all, and eventually even Sasha would be left with only blurry, snapshot memories, like holovids from Old Earth. Easier on them, certainly, but wrenching to think about just at the moment.

The Emperor walked her down to the groundcar that would take her to her parents' house. Her bags were already loaded. There was nothing left to do except leave, really, but the Emperor dismissed his Armsmen and the two of them stood looking at each other.

"Will you visit?" he asked finally.

"I've accepted a job with the Komarran Counselor," she said, by way of reply. "On Komarr, of course."

"I thought you had no wish to leave Vorbarr Sultana."

She blinked, startled to have her words – her exact words, she thought – from that long-ago interview reflected back at her. "The job is temporary – their regular nanny will return in a few months. And . . ." She hesitated briefly. "And things change, Sire."

"Yes," he sighed heavily. "I suppose they do, at that. I wish you all the best then."

"And you, Sire," she said. "Thank you for everything."

"No, Helena," he said, shaking his head, and she was so startled by the sound of her name on his lips that she almost didn't hear the rest of what he had to say. "I should thank you. You have been a very dear friend to me, during a very difficult time. I won't soon forget that."

She ducked her head. "Good-bye, Sire."

"Good-bye."

She slid into the groundcar and it pulled away smoothly down the long Residence drive. She glanced back once, and saw him still standing there, surrounded by his pack of guards. She didn't think he could possibly see her through the tinted windows, but he lifted his hand in farewell anyway. She did the same, and went on looking until they reached the end of the drive and turned down the street.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned to face forward once more.

_Fin._


End file.
